Picture Perfect
by MusicLover212
Summary: Dawn receives a new camera from May as a present, and over the years, she captures vital life events, including her experience of love. She looks back at the years that have passed with a smile. Ikarishipping and Contestshipping. Hints of Pokéshipping and OldRivalshipping/LeafGreenShipping.


**Picture Perfect**

* * *

She was just your average bubbly high school girl.

He looked like someone who was just simply done with humanity.

Now, at first glance, they may not seem like anything special. They may not even seem compatible in any way. But as the old saying goes, "opposites attract."

* * *

"Paul! Guess what!" the bluenette ran up to him, gushing over her new who-knows-what.

The boy whom she was speaking towards, Paul, sighed, "What do you want, Troublesome?"

Dawn, the ecstatic blue-haired girl, nearly shouted, "May got me a new digital camera for my birthday!"

"I thought that your birthday passed a couple of months ago."

"Right!" Dawn inwardly sweat-dropped at her inability to remember her very own date of birth. "I was just testing you!" she paused, unknowing of what to say next. "And you've passed!"

Paul stared at the rambling girl with no expression, except for maybe some hints of annoyance scattered upon his face.

Unfazed by the purple-headed boy's lack of emotion, Dawn continued, "Look!" she reached into her bag and pulled out a camera. "It has a little knob that you twist to adjust the focus, and there are so many different settings based on what kind of photo you want!"

Dawn kept on pushing random buttons located on her newly received contraption, and suddenly, something on the top flicked out, revealing some sort of emitter of light.

The bluenette was absolutely mesmerized. "I bet that that's the flash! If I set the camera so it allows flash, and I hold the capture button down about halfway, this little thingamajig pops out!" Pushing the little piece of metal back in its initial position, Dawn imitated her described action. Again. And again.

"Seems like it cost a lot of money," interrupted Paul, hoping to snap the easy-to-distract bluenette out of her fascination with the camera.

"It probably did. I bet that May somehow managed to get Drew to pay for it. After all, he is rich. Seriously. He even has a mansion!"

One thought raced through Paul's mind as Dawn had started talking about her friend, May, and May's kind-of-friend, Drew. _Here she goes again._

"After all, May would never be able to pay for a camera this professional! She always spends her allowances on food! Of course, Drew wouldn't mind buying something for her, even if it costs a million dollars! How have they not started dating yet?!"

"Dawn." There was no effect on the mindless, incoherent words she spoke. "Dawn. Stop," the ticked off purple-haired boy said through clenched teeth.

"Why? Are you jealous?" Dawn asked flirtatiously. Paul glared at her. She was smirking. It was clear that she had adapted this trait from the arrogant chartreuse-haired boy she had spoken of earlier.

"Why would I be jealous of people like them?" interrogated the stoic teenage boy.

Dawn leaned towards him, raised a finger, and pointed at his head, "Because you've never been in love before."

"I'm in high school. I am incapable of perceiving this emotion you call 'love.'"

"You know, that is a very good point. Most teenagers just act like they understand everything, when it ends up that they're still as immature as they once used to be," replied Dawn, with a much more mature tone in her voice.

"Hypocrite."

"Hey!" shouted Dawn, "I may be girly and all-over-the-place, but I am _not_ a coquette!" Her face was blushed scarlet with anger, and maybe some embarrassment.

"Only in some peoples' perspectives."

"Why do I even talk to you?"

"Because you wanted to be special and to be the only one who was able to actually get to know me."

"Hey, it worked!" Dawn's vivacious personality had resurfaced again. "See? You actually talk to me using full sentences, unlike the short one-word replies you normally give to other people!" she grinned in triumph.

"Hn."

Her smile faltered, and Dawn almost fell. "Or you could just not speak at all and simply grunt your way through life."

There was suddenly a bright flash.

Paul flinched. "What was that?"

"Smile!"

"That was definitely not spontaneous at all," the apathetic boy said with an emotionless expression on his face, although, on the inside, he was quite surprised by Dawn's sudden gesture.

* * *

Dawn and Paul were carrying a normal conversation (one where Dawn continues the majority of the whole conversation) at school right before class started.

Paul finally spoke up, "Did you bring your camera to the classroom?" he questioned, darting his eyes towards the black box poking out of Dawn's blue school bag.

"Of course! I always bring it with me; it's like my most prized possession!" she beamed. "Plus, that way, I know for sure that there won't be a single scratch on it! It's flawless!"

"And that's way you stuff it into your overflowing backpack filled with loose papers."

"The extra stationery provides as a cushion for my camera."

"What about your hard-cover textbooks?" he slumped onto his wooden desk, already growing weary of speaking. After all, he rarely spoke in public. For some reason, he only opened up (to a certain extent) to Drew and Dawn.

The bluenette was too busy rambling on about how perfect her strategy was on keeping her prime camera to its full radiance to notice the pig-tailed brunette sneaking up and snatching her prized camera.

She slowly took off the lens, and the cover flicked open.

Paul, even though he was aware of the brunette's actions, made no move to stop her. He simply raised an eyebrow.

The brown-haired girl smirked, and enthusiastically said, "Cheese!"

Completely caught off-guard, Dawn screamed. "May?! What are you doing?!"

"Nothing much. Just taking some pictures," replied May, still smirking.

"You evil little child," Dawn quietly said, narrowing her eyes at May, who was currently twirling the camera's neck brace back and forth with her index finger, causing the camera to spin in circles. Which, of course, made Dawn flare up with anger.

The bluenette immediately grabbed her camera and daintily set it down on her individual table.

"You spend too much time with Drew."

"What makes you say that?" queried May while twisting her hair around her finger. She let her curly tresses bounce out and started to twist them with her finger yet again.

"Well, you smirk a lot now, but of course, it's still not as nearly as much as Drew."

"Grasshead," corrected May, cutting off Dawn's explanation.

Rolling her eyes, Dawn continued. "You also spin your hair around, and it's almost the same as his signature hair flick."

May was taken aback. "That's offensive, Troublesome."

"And, now you're turning into Paul, too.

"What happened to May?" the brunette childishly gasped.

Dawn laughed, "I think Drew and Paul's harsh characters have finally overwhelmed her dynamic, but under-confident, personality."

Giggling, May replied, "I'm not sure if I should take that offensive. I mean, May Maple is too fabulous for both of those heartless jerks!" she balled her hands into fists and put them on her waist, imitating a common superhero pose.

The two girls instantaneously looked at Paul, who was currently lying flat on his desk, sleeping.

Dawn poked him, "I wonder if he realizes that school starts in about two minutes."

"Oh well. It doesn't matter to him anyway," shrugged May. She quickly, yet frantically, stole Dawn's camera out of her arms, leaving Dawn leaning over her desk, desperately trying to receive her beloved camera back.

_Click!_

The brunette scrolled through some of the pictures that were already stored in Dawn's camera and eventually came across the two that she had taken earlier.

The first one had Dawn faced towards Paul, with her mouth wide open, seemingly lecturing Paul about something. The purple-haired boy seemed to be indifferent towards whatever was spouting out of the blue-haired girl's mouth.

In the second picture, Paul was simply lying sideways, with his cheek on the table, asleep. Dawn was closer to the camera. Her arms were outstretched, and the blur of her hands and her facial expression demonstrated that was reaching for something. What was this "something?" Probably her camera.

"You really are a Drew."

May flicked her bangs over to the side of her head. "I try," she laughed delightfully.

* * *

Dawn, having recently graduated high school, was sitting on her bed, with a thick photo album resting on her lap.

She slowly turned over the page and stared at the succeeding page, smiling.

There were many various types of pictures, with her various friends scattered throughout her photo album.

There was one of Ash and Misty at the beach.

Another page held a picture of Leaf and Gary riding a ferris wheel.

They were all her friends, and she had met them through connections with other friends. However, they all lived in a different region, as did May. But the latter had transferred over to Dawn's region, where they had become best friends. May introduced Dawn to her old friends, and eventually, they had established their own little clique.

But, there were still hardly any pictures of Ash, Gary, Leaf, or Misty. She barely saw them. When she did, however, it was like no time had passed at all. They were all extremely close.

The next couple of pages were filled with pictures of Drew and May.

Dawn laughed at the memories she had gained over the past couple of years. This was about the time when she had started to set them up on dates (of course, they were unknowing of this), sometimes even managing to get Paul's help in her naïve plans.

During this time, Dawn had turned into a full-fledged stalker. She hid out in bushes, watched through windows, and tried to make herself as invisible as possible.

It worked out well.

Over the course of starting her stalker phase to being found out, Dawn had retrieved a significant amount of photos.

In fact, looking back at this segment in her photo album caused Dawn to be quite scared of her past self. Only momentarily, though.

After a significant amount of pages later, Dawn had started blushing. Her face was now tinged with a light rosy pink color.

Drew and May had found out about Dawn's part in the forming of their relationship, so they decided to help Dawn out with her love life. Despite Dawn's flirty appearance, she had never had a real boyfriend.

And so, she was paired up with Paul.

The bluenette was extremely skeptical at first, especially since she knew what the couple was up too.

"He's just a friend!" she had denied.

They had copied her and started crawling away in the background, beginning their very own stalker phase.

Their personalities clashed too much, and it was obvious in the way their faces molded in Dawn's photographs. They were polar opposites.

His face was as impassive as anyone's could get, even if he was somewhat comfortable with the cheery girl, and her face was smiling as wide as it possibly could, showing a teeth-filled grin.

However, over time, his barriers started to break down. It was evident in the photos. Near the end of the album, instead of having a frown or a straight line plastered on his face, there was a smirk.

The only time when he had truly smiled was at graduation.

And, now that she had finally looked back on the past two years of her life, she was glad. The last couple of pictures found in her treasured album with pictures only from her treasured camera had proven something.

They truly were perfect together.

Her brightness had shone its way through the dark cloud that submerged him.

* * *

A/N: Well. Paul is OOC. But I think that this turned out okay. :D The beginning is kind of weird, though. XD

Review? :)


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